How to refute the Sagan Standard in the case of the existence of God?
Are you asking how someone would do this?
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The Sagan standard?
Does the poster mean “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence?”
I am a Carl Sagan fan and have read all of his books.
So what is the O.P. talking about?
Maybe I’m misunderstanding something?
I think so. I wasn’t familiar with the term but this is from Wikipedia:
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence " (sometimes shortened to ECREE ), also known as the Sagan standard
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I think that will require extraordinary evidence.
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In order to refute such a demand you must deny reality and only believe whats in your head and just listen to what others tell you without evidence. Then regurgitate those claims as evidence that you are right to only people who’ll believe you because your claim confirms their skewed beliefs and be affirmed by them and never ever seek out an opinion that challenges yours. Those people are bad because different they are yeeesssss. Forget truth you must. (Sorry for going yoda on ya) onion lol.
That standard is a principle, emphasizing that claims that are unusual, or counter to established scientific understanding, need stronger evidence to be believable. It serves as a guide for critical thinking, and scepticism.
Outside of the methodologies of science, it needs no refutation, since one can set as low a bar for personal credulity as they wish.
How low a bar would you like to set, in order to pretend a deity exists? Also why? Also, why bring this here?
The first step for any sort of cogent debate, since this is a debate forum, would require that you accurately define the deity you believe exists, then demonstrate why you think such a deity is possible, and then finally demonstrate why you think such a deity exists.
Cryptic questions are not debate, nor is proselytising your beliefs.
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I am not sure if it needs to be refuted. It is a very good principle to follow when evaluating existential claims.
The only way I can see to refute is, is to admit one has low standards of evidence with regards to the claim that a god or gods exist.
If one cares if their beliefs are true (or not), then they should require rigorous standards of evidence to support them.
If one applies good standards of evidence when evaluating other supernatural claims (UFO abductions, Jinn, ghosts, crystal healing, bigfoot, etc), but does not use the same standards when evaluating god claims, they are guilty of special pleading.
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That’s uncanny… 
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Hitchens razor is rooted in an empiricist thought, does it have authority in metaphysical issues that involve something beyond the material and verifiable?
In other words: immaterial and unverifiable, hogwash doctrines pulled out of someone’s arse.
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Beyond the verifiable?
Then how does one ever hold, say, the existence of god/s as truth? How does one consider god/s any more true than, say, than the fairy in my pocket? They seem to be equally verifiable.
You say this as if that’s poor reasoning, and Hitchens’s razor existed as a philosophical razor long before the late author popularised it again
That depends how low a bar for personal credulity, one is prepared to set. The fact you are attempting to place a belief beyond what is verifiable, says it all really.
Do you adhere exclusively to scientific skepticism? Do you consider other forms of knowledge?
Do you adhere exclusively to scientific skepticism? Do you consider other forms of knowledge?
- Please define scientific skepticism.
- Please list these other forms of knowledge
1- Philosophical Knowledge
2-Religious Knowledge
3-Artistic/Aesthetic Knowledge
4-Intuitive/Experiential Knowledge
5-Traditional/Indigenous Knowledge
6-Practical/Technical Knowledge
Scientific skepticism is an intellectual approach that involves questioning and critically evaluating scientific claims, demanding solid empirical evidence, rigorous methodology, and replicability of results. It is based on the scientific method, promoting impartial analysis of hypotheses, peer review, and updating of conclusions as new data emerge.
If a postulate is not verifiable, then you have a BIG problem if you treat that postulate as true. Because what you have is a mere assertion instead of a genuine postulate. Mere assertions live forever in that limbo known as “truth value unknown”, until [1] someone devises a proper test of that assertion, and [2] that test is conducted. As a corollary, treating mere assertions as fact, in the absence of proper testing thereof, means you are walking through epistemological fog.
Oh, and as for metaphysics, be very careful about deploying this term. All too frequently, we see here assorted specimens who think that tossing the word “metaphysics” into their posts, magically hands free passes to unsupported blind assertions. It doesn’t.
Another problem with the use of the word “metaphysics”, is that much of the classical variant of that part of philosophy, was devised before modern science, and in particular, modern physics, rendered some of the questions therein redundant. Indeed, modern physics has been, to use the words of one commentator, terrifyingly successful at validating its postulates about the observable universe. If you think you can sweep that success away with nebulous usage of the word “metaphysics”, you are in for a nasty shock.
I would see 5 as a subset of 2, which in turn, is a special case of 4. Intuition and experience are not useless per se, but they are not conclusive, either. And one is readily misled by them. I see personal experience and intuition as a way to generate hypotheses … often untestable ones, but sometimes testable, but then we are back to the scientific method in that case.
I have always liked the Dali Lama’s take on the matter: if settled science disagrees with Tibetan Buddhism, then Tibetan Buddhism must correct its thinking. So far as I know, he’s the only religious leader to accept this principle.
Technology is just applied science, so I don’t really see 6 as separate from science.
That leaves use with Philosophical and artistic exploration which, while having an element of intuition and personal experience to them (particularly WRT art), are distinct ways of looking at life and reality. Do these lead to “knowledge” in and of themselves? I think they lead to discoveries and insights which, again, where possible can and should be submitted to empirical examination, experimentation, and verification.
Art, in particular, does not really make truth claims. A cubist and a realist will have a different way of expressing, but such “schools” are generally capable of seeing themselves as personal preferences or equally valid lenses – unlike religious denominations, say. It is really a way of framing / looking at life and experience and describing one’s impressions and feelings about that.
Philosophy uses logic, reason and critical thinking to explore fundamental questions, and so is rigorous about how it functions. But to the extent it draws conclusions that aren’t testable, it is informed speculation, just like anything else.
Mathematics is also a source of knowledge. It straddles science and philosophy. It is in a sense the language of science and a tool for doing science, but meta-mathematics also gets into existential questions that aren’t fully testable.
I suppose the fundamental question here is one of epistemology. What is knowledge, and how does one legitimately come by it? To me, science is the only discipline that confines itself to what is observable and verifiable, using a rigorous and reproducible methodology. This doesn’t render other ways of observing and exploring reality without value … and in fact I’d argue that math and philosophy are also crucially important.
Science tells us how to build atom bombs, but not whether or when we should, or how we should use them if we do. That’s the purview of philosophy. Of course religions have things to say about it too, but morality and ethics are better understood without the religious cruft, which IMO adds nothing (and often subtracts much).
I regard religious faith – the basis of religion – as a failed epistemology that does not tend to lead toward an accurate understanding of reality or to a rational exploration of difficult moral or existential questions, in that it is nothing but assertions that are not only unproven, but inherently and definitionally unprovable. By contrast science is a very successful and consistently productive epistemology informed by critical thinking that does not make pronouncements about things it can’t observe.